arcadia what are true trends in the industry?
There are many games that just hardware id ban you for cheating instantly.
That's mostly beside the point though. I think people just really do not like playing against cheaters, for very good reason. Tf2 isn't a massive game and while I understand you can't treat it as a small thing, and I don't think anyone is really advocating for it to be treated like it's insignificant, I do think that having to play against known cheaters does just take the fun away for 99% of people. I don't think there's anyone other than the people on cheater teams/cheater friend groups actually wanting former cheaters to come back. This season as mopsy said, everyone just has to play against elijah again, which no one really wants to do.
As other people have said as well, there has been little to no punishment for people actually playing with him really. Elijah was playing pugs and scrims all the same, banned or not for years. What's even the point of discussing the length of a cheating ban, if the people cheating can play the game anyways other than matches.
I can understand your rational for wanting to follow industry standards and the precedent set by other games, but the reality is tf2 doesn't have the resources to properly investigate every former cheater, nor does rgl have the power to fully remove cheaters from playing the game in every context other than matches. Lenience and 2nd chances are important, but it's coming at the cost of the entire community. Why should everyone else be punished when someone can cheat and have little to no actual consequence for it? Banning people for more significant lengths of time at least would make keeping track of cheaters easier and make punishing the people who insist on playing with them anyways easier.